Parkinson: Celebs should not front talk shows

TV veteran Michael Parkinson has criticised the "foolish ambition" of celebrities who try their hand at fronting talk shows.

Writing in the Radio Times, the broadcaster, 75, lamented the demise of the traditional chat show.

Parkinson, who retired from his chat show in 2007, wrote: "Sadly, I think the conversational talk show, the one shaped by my generation of talk-show hosts and practised so skilfully by the likes of Russell Harty and David Frost, has had it.

"It's not what today's commissioners want, favouring instead the more comedy-based shows invented by American greats like Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno."

He added: "Graham Norton perfectly demonstrates the kind of talk show where the host has more to say than the guests and ITV may have made a mistake moving Paul O'Grady into a 9pm slot.

"What was perfect at 5pm sits less comfortably at peak time and gifts a sitting duck for competing schedulers."

Parkinson said: "The trouble with the talk show is everyone fancies their chances. Even those on the extreme fringes of the ever-expanding world of modern celebrity reckon it's a doddle.

"They are encouraged in their foolish ambition by television executives who really ought to know better than to entrust the job to people who, more often than not, neither know how to ask a question nor listen to the answer."

His comments come after the likes of Lily Allen, Davina McCall and Charlotte Church have all tried their hand, with mixed results, at the format.

Parkinson singled out some chat show hosts, including Norton, for praise, saying: "For some, like Russell Harty, Clive James, Michael Aspel, Terry Wogan, Clive Anderson, Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton and Piers Morgan, it proved the perfect showcase for their disparate talent. For others it became the Bermuda Triangle of television."

But Norton, whose show is replacing Jonathan Ross's Friday night slot on BBC1, disagreed that the rise of the comedy-based chat show format was a retrograde step.

He admitted in the magazine: "I am really bad at actually interviewing people. My chat show really is a 'chat' show, in that we do just witter on because most questions you come up with you either know the answer to or are never going to be answered."

He added: "Shows have now been taken over by comedians and the like, who have big personalities of their own. This evolution was inevitable.

"It's fine to have a show all about the guest if you're talking to Bette Davis or Frank Sinatra, but if you are talking to someone from 'Emmerdale' - I mean, I am not that interested, are you?"

Alan Carr, who has a Channel 4 show, also told the magazine: "I try to just be myself. If I started coming over all Michael Parkinson on the guests, I think the audience would wet themselves laughing."

Parkinson told the magazine that the current generation of TV hosts in Britain "don't compare" to the US inventors of the genre.

He wrote: "Jonathan Ross is the nearest replica we possess in style and salary, although compared to the Yanks he seems underpaid. He is also our most practised host and a persuasive interviewer when he stops playing the silly ass."

He said he did approve of 'The Rob Brydon Show' on BBC2 - saying the host had a "rare gift in comedians - the ability to ask a question and listen to the answer".

In a possible swipe at other chat shows, he added: "What is more, he has a likeable presence and an intelligence which allowed him and his production team to understand what others have not grasped: the essential point that while the show must appear to be spontaneous, it must be planned and constructed to the last detail."